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August 15, 2013

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Healthier ‘countrified’ mooncakes once for poor

By Xu Wenwen | August 15, 2013, Thursday | Print Edition

While mooncakes made with nuts or eggs have dominated the Mid-Autumn Festival for thousands of years, healthier foods, including mooncakes made with ingredients like pumpkin and taro by farmers in Yuhang, Hangzhou, were viewed as being food for the poor.

That has changed, however, as healthier alternatives become popular.

Mooncakes, the representative food of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, were once something of a luxury because the ingredients, such as nuts, sugar, egg yolks and flour, were not cheap.

In the past, poorer residents figured out a way to solve the problem.

In east China, where sweet, Suzhou-style mooncakes with nuts inside prevailed, some people chose to eat pumpkins that are round, yellowish orange and sweet like mooncakes. Some made round pumpkin pies that looked like mooncakes.

Farmers in Tangqi Town, Yuhang, made mooncakes with vegetables often harvested in autumn such as pumpkin, sweet potato and taro replacing nuts and sugar.

They called their invention “countrified mooncakes” (tu yuebing), and as time went on, local confectionery stores started making and selling the countrified mooncakes all around Yuhang at prices lower than those of Suzhou-style mooncakes.

But since the 1980s, when the country’s economy began to rise, mooncakes have no longer been such a luxury, and the countrified ones almost disappeared.

Only when older people in Yuhang began to long for the cheap festival food of their youth did local food factories start producing them.

When the mooncakes’ lower-fat and lower-sugar qualities became known, Hangzhou urbanites also become fans of the countrified cake.

“It smells good, tastes neither too sweet nor too oily, and the crust is crispy and melts in your mouth tenderly,” said Zhu Yingxiong, a Hangzhou native.

The Li family, natives of Tangqi Town, plays a big role in both Fa Gen Food Factory and Lao Dao Pastry Factory, famous for their pastries, including countrified mooncakes.

The owner of Fa Gen Food Factory is Li Fagen, and his brother Li Shuigen is technical director of Lao Dao Pastry Factory.

Since 2011, Lao Dao Pastry has opened over 20 stores in urban Hangzhou, saying that more urban Hangzhou people are buying traditional Tangqi pastries.

The brothers keep their companies’ mooncakes looking countrified and sold in a simple paper package that includes eight mooncakes in a tube.

Lao Dao Pastry Factory made theirs even more rustic by baking the cakes in old-fashioned brick kitchen ovens.

“The brick kitchen ovens that bake mooncakes in iron plates make the pastry crispier than electric ovens that bake mooncakes in aluminum plates,” says Shen Jianbiao, chairman of Lao Dao Pastry Factory.

Shen says electric ovens control baking time and duration by computer, while the brick ovens are controlled by experienced cooks, in Lao Dao’s case, a 72-year-old oven worker.

“He knows when is the best time to add coal and to take out the pastries,” Shen says.

Despite their popularity, the old-fashioned mooncakes are still reasonably priced: 13 yuan (US$2.12) for a tube of eight pieces.

• Lao Dao Pastry online store:http://shop67554130.taobao.com/

• Fa Gen Food online store:http://laomianpi.taobao.com

Tip: They make countrified mooncakes starting the last week of the month.

DIY countrified mooncakes

Material for the crust: 300g flour, 100g lard, 20g maltose

Material for pastry filling: The filling can be of sweet potato, pumpkin, red beans or taro. Boil thoroughly and then mash.

Process:

1. Combine 200g of flour, 30g of lard and 20g of maltose, add water and knead them into dough. Cover it and let it stand for 20 minutes.

2. Combine 100g of flour and 70g of lard, add water and knead them into dough. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.

3. Knead the dough from step one into a flat piece, and use it to wrap the step two dough. Now knead the mixture by hand and make it into a large flat piece.

4. Form the piece into a roll, and cut the long roll into eight pieces. Make each piece into a small ball, and knead those into flat pieces.

5. Place the filling in the middle of the small flat piece, and close it up, keeping the shape round. Put all semi-done mooncakes on a greased tray in the oven.

6. Brush the surface of cakes with liquid yolk, and add sesame if you like.

7. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for half an hour.

(Provided by Lao Dao Pastry Factory)

 

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